


by the way (i'm wearing the smile you gave me)

by barbiewrites



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Jonathan Byers, Gay Billy Hargrove, Gay Will Byers, Good Sibling Jonathan Byers, Happy Will Byers, Ice Cream, M/M, Nancy Wheeler - mentioned, Platonic Date, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Steve Harrington - mentioned, its about my favorite gays, not explicit but we all Know why he's hanging out with billy, this isn't really harringrove but it's heavily implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 10:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13522416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barbiewrites/pseuds/barbiewrites
Summary: How Jonathan realizes he and Nancy have a new thing in common - they've both been blown off for Billy Hargrove.





	by the way (i'm wearing the smile you gave me)

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd, idk where the title is from

Things are always tense in November.

 

It’s scary. For the past two years, terrible thing had happened in November, and this year feels like waiting for something horrible. 

Jonathan feels it worst. Joyce finds some comfort in Hopper, and she’s so damn busy working that it offers a little distraction from the last month of autumn. 

 

He watches his brother a lot, when Will isn’t off with his friends. He’d gotten told off for constantly checking up on him between periods. 

 

“I’m a highschooler now,” he’d said. “I can take care of myself. Promise.” His smile had been so earnest Jonathan cracked and started keeping his distance until after the final bell rang.

 

The Wheelers are using the long weekend to go up to Napolis, leaving both  Will and Jonathan best-friend-less. Jonathan, truthfully, is a little glad if only for the fact that he can focus on college apps. Nancy has focus like a hawk and had finished all of her essays before the semester had even started, and here he is, scrambling to get them done over a long weekend. Figures. 

 

He wakes up on Friday, cooks breakfast for himself and Will, then retreats to his room to work. He leaves his door wide open, for quick escape if he hears something odd, and to let Will know he’s welcome to come right in. Will does -- but it’s several hours later to remind him about lunch. 

 

Jonathan makes them turkey sandwiches and before he can ask if Will wants to eat with him, the kid has run back to his room and shut the door. 

 

He eats what he can -- he doesn’t really have much of an appetite these days -- then tosses the rest in the trash, making sure to cover his scraps with other trash so his mother didn’t glance into the bin and start worrying. He works for another three hours, until his brain feels like it’s going to explode if he doesn’t stop staring, then decides it’s in his best interests to take a break. He can spend some time with Will, gather his morale, then start it all up again. 

 

So he decides on it -- he can spend some time with Will, make sure he’s doing okay. He drags his feet across the carpet, over to Will’s door. “Hey,” he calls, rapping his knuckles over the door as he pushed it open. He steps inside, rests on the door frame for a second. 

 

“Hey,” his brother replies, not even bothering to look up from where he’s pushing a handful of cassettes into his bag.

 

Jonathan waits a beat, then moves to sit on his brother’s bed. “Cool drawing,” he compliments, looking at the detailed drawing of a car laid on his desk. 

 

“Thanks,” Will replies again, pushing a scarf into his bag. 

 

“You going on a trip?” Jonathan asks with a little laugh.

 

“I have plans,” he answers, and even though Will doesn’t look up, he can see a little smile on his face. Jonathan is somewhat taken by surprise with his answer, though. 

 

Oh. 

 

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to hang out,” Jonathan admits, and  _ now _ Will looks up.

 

“Oh,” he says, and his brother, bless his tiny, endless heart, looks guilty. 

 

“It’s cool, though,” Jonathan assures him. 

 

“Sorry,” Will says sheepishly, as if feeling apologetic for being excited about his plans. 

 

“It’s fine, Will,” he assures.

 

“Still.”

 

“What do you have planned?” Jonathan asks, looking towards his bag. 

 

“Ice cream, then we’re gonna go to the record store.” His smile is back, and Jonathan is glad Lucas and Dustin invited him out. Gives him a chance to get out of the house, have a little time with his friends.

 

“I’ll let you get back to packing,” he chuckles, then dismisses himself after they share a high five. 

 

He heads back to the living room, tries to busy himself with a little tidying, then washing the dishes he’d dirtied making breakfast and lunch so his mother wouldn’t have to worry about it when she got off her double shift. 

 

He’s wrist deep in dirty, soapy water when he hears a car pulling up. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t be worried, but he can’t hear the heavy clunking of Hop’s pickup or the tired rattle of Joyce’s car. Both of Lucas’ parents worked, and Mrs. Henderson didn’t leave the house much these days. He hastily dries his hands on his jeans, then takes big steps over to the couch, where he kneels on the old cushions, pushing aside the blinds. 

 

Billy Hargrove, in all of his horrible glory, is sitting in his car outside Jonathan’s house. 

 

It’s terrifying, really. Billy was pure intimidation. All the things his dad wanted Jonathan to be, Billy was. Strong, handsome, effortlessly charming, a real  _ man’s man _ . Even despite the earring. Maybe that’s what made the fact that they’d both been able to beat up Steve Harrington -- and really, Jonathan had come out of that in much better shape than Billy had -- nearly irrelevant. It was simply the fact that Lonnie would like him, and yeah, he hates Lonnie and Lonnie is an asshole who deserves to choke, but his daddy issues were acting up and he cannot have Billy Hargrove at his house. Billy’ll kill him -- or worse, he’s here looking for Max again. Steve had gotten all dreamy-eyed when he described ‘he’s nicer now!’ but Jonathan did not buy that, not until he saw it with his own two eyes. 

 

“Bye, Jonathan!” Will calls from the door, snapping him out of his trance as Will pulled it open and all but ran out the door. 

 

“Will!” Jonathan yells, running to the door. 

 

He stops in the doorway at Billy’s easy grin as the other watches his brother bounds towards him. The driver’s window is down, and rather than a cigarette hanging from his mouth, Jonathan can see a toothpick. 

 

Will runs up to the driver’s side window and the two of them do some sort of secret handshake -- backwards slap, forwards slap, fist bump, hooked thumbs then another backwards slap. 

 

 

His little brother has a personalized handshake with Billy Hargrove. 

 

Will’s hand lifts, and Jonathan can see it’s the drawing of the car he’d had so nicely laid out on his desk. The camaro. 

 

The grin on Billy’s face isn’t fake -- he knows this because of all people, Billy Hargrove is not one to fake his emotions for a kid’s ego.

 

Jonathan’s gaze is fixed on Will as he runs to the other side, tosses his bag into the footwell, then climbs into the passenger seat and digs around before holding up a tape. He talks excitedly to Billy as the older ejects the current one, letting Will slide his own music in. Billy reminds him to buckle his belt, and Will listens. 

 

Billy gives him a nod of acknowledgement before he’s backing out of the drive to take Jonathan’s little brother out. For ice cream. 

 

He shuts the front door and blinks to himself a few times. He feels a little like Nancy around this time last year as she desperately tried to get Steve to forgive her (like it was even hard) for the whole cheating and lying thing. Nonetheless, both members of their relationship now had another thing in common --

They’d both been blown off for Billy Hargrove.


End file.
